Everything Poops

This is of course meant as an educational offering, you know… us being a top science blog and all…

Everything Poops by Kevin Zelnio
Lyrics under the fold
chorus:
| Anything that eats has gotta take a shit
| I don’t see why we gotta make a big deal of it
| Some do it out in nature, some do it in holes
| everyone poops baby, that’s just they way it goes

This is a very timely song! Was watching Rubicon and the question came up there on do bears poop when hibernating? The answer was very unsatisfactory to me as the guy basically said bears had a special and unique digestive system that allowed for recycling wastes. However, bears are not the only hibernating animal out there. So I’ll broaden it up, how do animals in hibernation poop?

Hey bro, My guess is that hibernating animals do not poop because they need to take in food to create waste. The refractory material (stuff you can’t digest further and get nutrients out of) moves through a body fairly quickly right? Marine animals don’t hibernate though, so I don’t know for a fact what landlubbing critters do. Maybe another commenter does.